[Dx4win] VUCC & LOTW

[Jim Reisert AD1C]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 1:49 PM, Mike Rhodes W8DN wrote:

> Is there a way to use the LOTW award to mark these Qs as 'C'onfirmed for
> VUCC in DX4Win?

No direct way.  FYI, there is no such thing as "LoTW Award".  I think
you are thinking of importing *confirmations* from LoTW into DX4WIN.

Here's the long answer...

I have done two VUCC submissions.  The first was all (only)
electronic, through the LoTW web site.  You can go to your DX4WIN
Award preferences for VUCC and change the confirmation method to
"LoTW" only.  Then do a VUCC submission through the DX4WIN Reports
menu.  It will pull only VUCC confirmations that have previously been
confirmed via LoTW.  But this list probably won't match up exactly
with the list of QSOs that the VUCC system generated, so you'll have
to touch it up.

Then about 6 months later, I did another submission with both LoTW and
paper QSL confirmations allowed.  This was to get all my QSLs together
for grids for which I did not have a LoTW confirmation.  There were a
few LoTW confirmations included, but I eliminated those from the
submission.  Now I'm at 250 grids credited on 6 meters, with a handful
of LoTW confirmations I have not yet submitted.

Unlike DXCC, there is no way to to download an ADIF file of all your
LoTW credits.  I was hoping to use this to make sure my DX4WIN award
flags were correct.  I was going to add it to this program:

    http://dx4win.ad1c.us/lotw/

If you click on "Version History" you'll see where I was headed.  I
stupidly wrote all the code, then only when I tried to use it, found
out it does not work.  At the time I had only LoTW credits, so I
*thought* it was working.  Until I submitted those QSLs.  You *can*
download all your (say) 6 meter QSOs from LoTW (K1MU wrote a utility
to help with this), and there will be VUCC award credits in that file,
but *only* for QSOs confirmed through LoTW.  Any grids you have
confirmed only by paper QSL will *not* be in that file.  Well, the
QSOs will be in that file, but there is not an ADIF field showing you
having received credit for them.

I have a possible work-around, but it's not pretty, and relies only on
"scraping" the list of grids confirmed that you can get on the award
page.  I just have not had time to work on it yet.

73 - Jim AD1C

-- 
Jim Reisert AD1C, <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>, http://www.ad1c.us